City and borough officials were among those marveling at the free-standing structure inside the East Meadow in front of the Children’s Museum on the grounds of the Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden in Livingston.

The $3 million project provides the perfect weather-protected space for outdoor events, said Dina Rosenthal, the museum’s executive director.

“We wanted a place where kids can feel secure outside in a beautiful covered space and enjoy this wonderful architecture and the way that it defines the museum’s outdoor space,” she said.

Though tentlike, it’s not your ordinary park tent, stressed Sandro Marpillero of Marpillero Pollak Architects, Manhattan. The 2,200-square-foot structure includes solar panels, which create energy to light up the tent for nighttime events. The tent’s distinctive ridge shape captures rainwater in its funnels to create waterfalls around the structure. Wind power, the product of a wind turbine and wind scoop on top of the museum building, transmits data to an indoor, interactive display that teaches children about the average energy consumption in a home.

In a neat piece of symmetry, Marpillero noted that the forces of sun and wind are the very ones that defined the lives of the sailors who eventually made their home at Snug Harbor.

Among those in attendance last night were: Amanda Straniere of the borough president’s office; David Resnick of the city Department of Design and Construction; assistant commissioners of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and City Councilwoman Debi Rose.